Mayor Chuck Reed has given the first unmistakable sign that he understands the crisis of public confidence in the San Jose Police Department — and that he takes it seriously.

Reed wants the city manager, city auditor and independent police auditor to review police use-of-force incidents for 2009, looking at cases in which resisting arrest or interfering with an officer is the only charge. These kinds of arrests sometimes spring from incidents as minor as jaywalking that somehow escalate into violence. Their numbers have grown in recent years far out of proportion to other cities and appear to indicate a culture change in the department, a more confrontational approach to the public than San Jose has come to expect.

Police Chief Rob Davis has said the department itself will more closely review incidents involving use of force. But a top-level review outside the police department, as Reed proposes, will be a major breakthrough — a crucial first step toward rebuilding public trust. Without that trust, some people, particularly minorities, will become more reluctant to call or talk to the police, and over time the entire city will become less safe.

Reed will make his recommendation today to the city council public safety committee. Members should discuss whether adding a community representative to the panel might make sense at some point, although an in-house review headed by City Manager Debra Figone avoids complications involving confidentiality. Since Davis reports to Figone, she can do this on her own authority and will not need reports to be redacted.

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Questions about arrest patterns have been raised in Mercury News reports by Sean Webby over the past year, first on public drunkenness arrests and more recently on resisting arrest, even in cases where no other major charge was filed. These are arrests for behavior that police have wide discretion to interpret as criminal or not. It's clear from the data in Webby's reporting that San Jose makes arrests in situations that police in other cities are able resolve without them.

A video of police officers beating San Jose State student Phuong Ho earlier this fall has become emblematic of the trend. Police were called because Ho had gotten into a fight. He says officers began beating him when he tried to pick up his glasses — and indeed, in a newly enhanced version of the grainy video now posted on mercurynews.com, it's clear that the student is crying out for his glasses and not, say, cursing the officers.

When Davis saw the video last month, he seemed to be appalled. The department conducted an internal investigation of the incident, which has been forwarded to the district attorney. Criminal charges against the officers are by no means assured, since police have wide latitude under the law to use force to subdue a suspect. But if what happened was legal, that doesn't make it right.

Community groups are carefully watching what unfolds. On this page last week, a number of minority organizations, including the Asian Law Alliance and the NAACP, called for Davis to resign. It's clear that the community will not trust the department to police itself — and that internal policies have not been working. Reed's proposal offers new assurance that the city's top leaders are listening.